Descartes's the Philosophical Revolution - Report Example

?Philosophy 4) The claim is often made that Descartes induced a revolution in philosophy by combining his method of doubt with his method of inquiry.Comment on the philosophical revolution that Descartes engendered. What criticisms, if any, can you bring against his position? Rene Descartes was one of the great French philosophers and thinkers of the seventeenth century. Known for his philosophy of “I think, therefore, I am,” Descartes introduces to us one of the important philosophical principles, which is that of skepticism and uncertainty. Since his early age, Descartes had begun to doubt every traditional fact, he had ever known or learned. His doubts even reached his own existence in the world. So, in his Discourse on Method Meditations and Principles, Descartes explains and elaborates the principles of his philosophy that depend on skepticism and uncertainty. Then, he started to rebuild his knowledge, as well as ours, by proving his own existence, and the existence of mind, soul, and God. As noticed by many thinkers, “the Method of Doubt ultimately involves the task of removing all uncertain beliefs, ensuring that only beliefs that are certainly true beliefs remain in one's philosophy” (Bellotti). In order to take us from the state of complete doubt to complete certainty, Descartes made an insightful connection between his method of doubt and his method of inquiry, resorting to the use of the scientific method of thinking, advocated by former thinkers and philosophers. In essence, the scientific method can be considered as a process, in which one corrects himself and his previous knowledge, through continuous examination of truth, for the final aim of finding answers to questions. This examination of truth is what is referred to as doubt and skepticism by Descartes (Bracken). Theoretically, the scientific method of thinking, as practiced by famous thinkers such as Galileo and Francis Bacon, takes two main forms: deductive reasoning and inductive reasoning. Building on the theories of great former thinkers, Descartes found that the deductive method best suited his philosophical principles. To illustrate, the deductive form of the scientific method arrives at a provable true conclusion by reasoning after the application of thoughtful experiments and sound logic. The inductive method, on the other hand, starts with observations, which create a hypothesis to be proved through a confirmation process. This form of the scientific method can be evidenced, for example, in Newton’s law of gravity. He arrived at this law after observing the fall of the apple from the tree. This observation led him to make a hypothesis about a hidden force that let the apple fall, leading him to arrive at the law of gravity. On the contrary, the deductive form of the scientific method does not start with a hypothesis; rather, it looks at the already existent facts and examines them through reasoning to derive conclusion about the accuracy and authenticity of the fact. So, this was exactly what Descartes wanted to implement, regarding his philosophy of doubt. For him, any known fact can be doubted till it is logically proved to be true through reasoning (Roach). Descartes derived this trust in the concept of logic and reasoning from his background as a mathematician. He clearly states this fact, when he says that he was delighted “with mathematics because of the certainty of its demonstrations and the evidence of its reasoning” (Beardsley, p. 9). Making use of his mathematical background, Descartes then tended to apply logic and reasoning to all his future philosophical principles. Implementing the deductive form of the scientific method, Descartes goes on in his meditations to experience an intellectual journey, in which he doubts every single fact in our world. As noted by many observers, “Descartes begins his method of doubt by considering that he has, in the past, been deceived by his senses – things have looked a way that they are not” (Lacewing). As a result, this scientific method of thinking led him to reduce his method of determining the truth into four steps. First, he advocates that we should never accept anything as true without having a clear evidence of its truthfulness. Second, Descartes believes that the best way to face difficulties that are to be examined is by dividing them into as many parts as possible. Third, thoughts, according to Descartes, should be organized, starting with the simplest to know object, to rise gradually to the knowledge of the most complicated things. Fourth, Descartes’ interest in mathematics led him to believe in making enumerations to make sure that he did not leave anything, during his journey of searching for the truth (Beardsley, p. 16). Those four steps of reasoning are Descartes’ approach of scientific method that is to be used in order to diminish doubt about any fact and reach the utmost certainty. Accordingly, it is obvious that the scientific method was very helpful for Descartes to prove his philosophical principles. It would have been a very difficult task for him to take us in a journey from skepticism and doubt to absolute truth before giving us the basic principles of scientific thinking in its deductive form. This scientific method of thinking is praised and evaluated by Descartes, who believes that it should be the method “which everyone should follow in order to promote the good conduct of his reason” (Beardsley, p. 7). In the first Mediation of Descartes’ book “A Discourse on Method, Meditations, and Principles,” he tries to convince the reader of his methodology of thinking. After he had introduced his theory of doubt and the necessity of thinking of everything around us, Descartes tries first to apply his methodology on the basic notion of our existence. That is to say, in this paragraph from Meditation I, Descartes tries to prove our existence in the world of reality, after he applied his concept of uncertainty and doubt to all the previous knowledge we once believed in as true and unquestionable. Actually, Meditation One introduces us to Descartes’ methodology of thinking, applied to the proof of our own existence. In order to give evidence for our existence, Descartes starts by giving a supposition that we may be dreaming. Using the example of the dream and inquiring whether the bodies we have are real, Descartes arrives at the conclusion that our existence in the shape we are in is not an illusion. By asking and analyzing philosophical questions about the shapes of our bodies, Descartes proved that we actually exist in reality. In other words, his logic was that even if were dreaming, we could not form the shapes of our bodies in our minds the way they are unless they exist in reality. Accordingly, he concludes that our bodies exist in reality, and he diminishes any possibility of doubt, concerning this matter. It may be argued that this part of his meditation is so important and vital for the rest of his philosophies to be presented. That’s because had he failed to diminish any doubts about our existence after he had raised doubts in the mind of the readers, it would have been very difficult to prove any other theory about the existence of the soul or the world around us. So, after he succeeded in giving a logical and philosophical proof of our existence, it becomes easy for Descartes to build upon this foundation, and to take his argument of doubt further to be applied to other natural things in the world. After Descartes conveyed his first premise about our existence, it led him to a number of other deductions. Since he became completely sure about his own existence, he turned afterwards to examine the reality and nature of our minds, souls, and the existence of God. It is as if he wants to say that since we exist in the real world, any thing else can be proved using the scientific way of thinking. So, it can be said that with the style of analysis and methodology he uses, Descartes established the foundation for most modern philosophy; there are actually many schools of thought that are based upon his basic philosophical principle of doubt and uncertainty. Thus, one can say that by applying his methodology on the issue of our existence, Descartes succeeded in convincing the reader with his own principles and philosophy. As for the style of Descartes in this paragraph, he makes perfect use of analogies. Two important analogies are used by Descartes to illustrate his argument about the existence of our bodies as they are. Those two analogies are the dreaming and painting. The aim of using both analogical imagery is to illustrate Descartes concept that our bodies with their particulars are not illusions and that they exist in reality. That’s because dreamers and painters can not produce absolutely new forms that did not exist in nature. Therefore, Descartes concluded that our bodies exist in realities and that they are not imaginary. Thus, it is obvious that the analogies used by Descartes were very helpful in conveying and illustrating his argument. On the other hand, Descartes’ perfect link between his methods of doubt and inquiry is reflected clearly in Part Four of the book. In this part, Descartes begins to present his major philosophy, which is that of doubt and uncertainty. In the opening paragraph of this part, Descartes starts by doubting everything, in accordance to his method of skepticism. So, he opens this paragraph by the expression “I am in doubt as to the property….” In order to convey his message of skepticism and uncertainty to the reader, Descartes uses expressions, such as “doubt,” “uncertain,” and “skeptical.” In this paragraph, he wants to introduce the idea of doubting all the existing facts, especially those that are associated with the minimum doubt. Consequently, he related his theory of skepticism to the notion of rejecting as "absolutely false" all that bears the least bit of doubt. Hence, by joining those two notions of “doubt” and “absolutely false,” Descartes is systematically and smoothly introducing “his first principle in the philosophy.” In bringing up his first principle, Descartes is actually preparing the reader to accept his expansion of the principle, "I think, therefore I am" to include all of its implications. That is to say, the opening paragraph of Part Four stands as an introduction for Descartes’ philosophy of thinking and doubting, which will later be expanded to include the existence of God, the existence of our bodies and minds, and finally, truth, in general. Therefore, at this part of his meditation, Descartes wants us to believe that anything known can not be certain unless it is thought of as being doubtful at first. So, he presents us with one of the most elegant lines of thought in philosophy, by beginning to doubt all claims of knowledge. According to this line of thought, advocated by Descartes, nothing can be affirmed with absolute certainty. In this opening paragraph of Part Four, Descartes sets the ground to his philosophy of skepticism, by doubting all the old-established theories and rules, which he had been taught. He realized that he himself should reject many of the things he had learned at his youth, in order to reconstruct his knowledge about the truth. That’s why he explicitly says that he “rejected as false all the reasoning [he] had hitherto taken for demonstrations.” Thus, as readers, we feel that his next task, in the rest of the discourse, is to reconstruct our knowledge gradually in order to get rid of the doubts that we had about certain facts. Consequently, it may be said that Descartes' philosophical method is intended to be a method for doubting and inquiring about everything and every aspect of our lives, from science to religion. So, according to Descartes, any attempts to know and understand the world around us must begin by doubting any fact that was taken for granted as certain. In fact, his philosophy of doubt and skepticism is well prepared and introduced in the opening paragraph of Part for of his Discourse, in which he paves the ground for introducing his methodology of reconstructing our knowledge after diminishing uncertainty from our thoughts. To sum up, it can be said that in “A Discourse on Method, Meditations, and Principles,” Descartes formulated a scientific approach of thinking that is built on doubt and certainty. As argued by many other philosophers and analysts, Descartes induced a revolution in philosophy by combining his method of doubt with his method of inquiry and accepting only what reason recognizes as clear and provable. Descartes’ approach in proving and illustrating his philosophy is based on the concept of analyzing complex ideas by dividing them into smaller parts. This is evident in his discussion of our existence. In Meditation I, Descartes started by proving the existence of our bodies in reality, then he will move on to prove the existence of our souls and minds, and ending the discussion by proving the existence of God. All in all, it can be recognized that Descartes proceeds according to the scientific method of thinking to advocate the concept of doubt and certainty and to prove the existence of body, mind, soul, and finally, the existence of God. Works Cited Beardsley, Monroe C. “The European Philosophers from Descartes to Nietzsche.” The Modern Library. New York. 2002 Bellotti, Tony. “Descartes’ Method of Doubt.” Pathways School of Philosophy. 20 Apr. 2012. Bracken, Harry. “Descartes’ Method of Doubt by Janet Broughton.” 2003. 19 Apr.. 2012. Lacewing, Michael. “Descartes and the Method of Doubt.” 20 Apr. 2012. Roach, Jesse. “Descartes’ Method of Doubt and the Cogito: Part I.” 16 Feb. 2010. 19 Apr. 2012. Read More